Daley's Policy Chief Quits For New Post In Schools

July 28, 1995|By John Kass and V. Dion Haynes, Tribune Staff Writers.

MarySue Barrett, who turned down Mayor Richard Daley's request to manage his 1995 re-election campaign, is leaving her City Hall job as policy chief for a just-created $110,000-a-year job in the revamped Chicago Public Schools.

Daley and school officials on Thursday publicly portrayed the Barrett appointment of mayoral liaison as a key addition to his new school team.

It was unclear, though, whether the move is one of political exile or one to give Barrett a chance to win back Daley's favor by keeping tabs on what the rest of his handpicked education team is doing.

Some school reformers interpreted it as a clear signal that politics continues in Chicago education despite pledges of reform being carried out in a non-political atmosphere.

"I thought everybody at the central office was a liaison to City Hall," said Julie Woestehoff, executive director of the school reform group, Parents United for Responsible Education. "They want better communications? In a perfect world, that makes sense. But in the world of Chicago, it has a political basis that remains to be seen."

Daley's habitual claim has been that too many bureaucrats are at Pershing Road and that he would allow Chief Executive Officer Paul Vallas free rein in managing the schools. There are plans to cut hundreds of bureaucrats through layoffs in the school budget due Aug. 10.

Barrett, 31, is a savvy operative who has been with the mayor for several years, first as an aide to outgoing political enforcer Tim Degnan, and most recently as Daley's policy adviser with an emphasis on public education.

Low-key, competent and thorough are a few of the adjectives that have been used to describe her during her City Hall tenure, able to cool the tempers of aldermen and deal with state legislators.

She also triumphed in many behind-the-scenes turf wars in city government.

But her fortunes took a downward turn after she declined Daley's request to run his campaign. The post went to Carolyn Grisko, who helped direct the mayor to a landslide victory while bringing in several key aldermanic allies through re-election campaigns.

The decision to move Barrett out of City Hall came weeks ago, and the message was delivered by her patron, Degnan, who is retiring from government this week.

"It was a mutual thing," Barrett said Thursday of her discussions with Daley about not running his re-election campaign.

"The mayor talked to me about his campaign. I told him I was of more value on the government side rather than the campaign side. I like government more than I do politics. He understood and supported me."

That's not the recollection of other Daley aides about how those talks went.

"When the mayor personally asks you to do something, you answer in only three words: `Yes, Mayor Daley,' " said a City Hall source. "But MarySue is very smart, and she brings a lot of talent to the table."

School Board President Gery Chico, like Vallas, a former top City Hall official, publicly welcomed Barrett to the schools team. Chico said that he had asked Daley to send her to Pershing Road because they worked closely together on education when he was the mayor's chief of staff.

"She's intimately aware of what we're doing and why we're doing it," said Chico in an interview Thursday. "She knows the political people, she knows the legislature and she knows the schools, principals and local school councils."

"I'll be Gery's right-hand person and a link back to City Hall, but also a link between the board and the administrative management team," Barrett said. "I'll be doing intergovernmental work, working with the General Assembly and developing stronger relationships with government agencies."

Asked why Daley needs a liaison to the board (he maintains close contact with his appointees), she said:

"You've watched other attempts to reform the school bureaucracy. Everything before has been incremental. You get a new board or a new School Finance Authority, but never everything at one time. I think the mayor felt he wanted someone working on school issues as I have. I think I can bring something to the table."

Her salary of $110,000 ranks only below Vallas' $150,000 and the salaries of education officer Lynn St. James ($140,000) and operations chief Ben Reyes ($117,000). Chico serves without pay.

Daley replaced Barrett as policy chief with city lawyer John M. Satalic, who helped Grisko run the re-election campaign.